The Impact of Corruption on Regime Legitimacy: A Comparative Study of Four Latin American Countries

Economists have long warned about the pernicious impacts of corruption, arguing that it increases transaction costs, reduces investment incentives, and ultimately results in reduced economic growth. Political scientists, on the other hand, ever the realists, have had a much more ambivalent view of the problem. Indeed, much classic literature focusing on the Third World saw corruption as functional for political development, enabling citizens to overcome intransigent, inefficient bureaucracies while increasing loyalty to the political system. More recent research, however, points in the opposite direction toward an erosion of public support for corrupt regimes. A series of serious methodological problems has…